Child protection: Catch-22 all over again. Again and again… Part 1

J.C. spent most of her growing up years “in the care of the minister.” They weren’t easy years, and she barely survived. She wanted better for her son, and she did everything authorities asked of her, and more. So why did Nova Scotia’s child welfare decide to take her child anyway? And what does what […]

Promises to make… Promises to keep?

Iain Rankin billed himself as the candidate of generational change. But as a premier in pre-election pretend mode, he seems more like the unwelcome but familiar ghost of politicians past On June 14, 2021, Health Minister Zach Churchill announced the “Rankin government” — as it demands to be known — will invest one million dollars […]

So… Nova Scotian

The still-unfolding story behind last year’s firing of new NSCAD President Aoife Mac Namara fits all too neatly into the ongoing story of business as usual in Nova Scotia. Pity. It all seems, well, so … Nova Scotian. Let’s begin way back in the late 1960s and early seventies when a local developer named Ben […]

Free speech and ‘really good conversation’… Opportunities to teach and to learn

I used to think of myself as a free speech absolutist. I still do… mostly. But I’m now a little less absolute in my absolutism. Let’s take a look at two recent close-to-home cases. I used to think of myself as a free speech absolutist. I still do… mostly. But I’m now a little less […]

Planning for a re-opening and hoping for a re-election

Premier Iain Rankin needs a do-over after a gaffe-prone first few months in office. His government’s gradual re-opening gives him another chance to make a better impression. On Friday afternoon, Premier Iain Rankin announced what he describes as a five-phase plan to allow too-long shuttered, increasingly restless, can’t-wait Nova Scotians to resume something approximating normal […]

What’s the ‘reasonable’ limit on protest in a public health emergency?

How do you distinguish between anti-maskers intending to flout health restrictions in the name of their “freedom” to infect themselves and others and organizers of a COVID-safe car rally intended to protest violence against Palestinians? You don’t, say police. But should they? On the morning of Friday, May 14, 2021, Nova Scotia government lawyers — […]

The ‘quiet’ turmoil inside the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society

The society claims it wants to “eliminate or mitigate systemic discrimination” in its organization. But will it really come to terms with its Lyle Howe legacy? “There’s something happening here,” Stephen Stills once wrote. “What it is ain’t exactly clear.” Here in this case is inside the traditionally somnambulant corridors of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ […]

Getting coffee while black

What does a recent human rights case — and HRM’s lack of response to it — say about the state of race in Halifax in 2021? On the morning of Jan. 24, 2017, Gyasi Symonds, a provincial department of community services caseworker, did what many of us routinely did in pre-pandemic times. He went for […]

Brace for a(nother) summer of discontent in Nova Scotia’s fishing industry

How do Ottawa and First Nations mutually agree on the best way to organize Atlantic Canada’s most lucrative fishery to serve the economic interests of Indigenous communities and those of traditional non-Indigenous commercial fishers without undermining the industry’s commercial viability or environmental sustainability? It won’t happen so long as Ottawa insists it alone knows best. […]

Dancing on the head of a constitutional pin

Is the Veterans Affairs department’s internal review of its handling of the Lionel Desmond murder-suicide relevant to the current Nova Scotia inquiry? Yes. Are there lessons to be learned? Almost certainly. Time for Ottawa to stop playing jurisdictional games and make it public. Some days you read something, and you just have to shake your […]